South Carolina’s terrific season will be judged on what it does in title game

MINNEAPOLIS — South Carolina was ranked No. 1, without interruption, for five months. It put up some of the best stats in the country. Aliyah Boston collected just about every award there is, and coach Dawn Staley got a nice one, too.

And none of it will mean much unless the Gamecocks are cutting down the nets Sunday night.

“At the end of the day, we’re going to be judged by championships. That’s the thing that most people remember,” Staley said before the Final Four. “Do we feel pressure to win? Yeah, because we’re a pretty good basketball team. We’re here.

“Will us not winning define who we are and what we’re able to accomplish? No.”

Not in the overall measure of Staley and her players’ lives, no. For this small slice of it, though, what they do in the NCAA Tournament title game will determine their narrative. Are they one of the all-time great teams? If not the start of the next dynasty, at least the start of a new era in college basketball?

Or do they become yet another team known for what they didn’t do? A season’s worth of brilliance overshadowed for eternity by one game?

“We’re not done yet. We still have unfinished business,” Destanni Henderson said after South Carolina dismantled Louisville 72-59 on Friday night in a game that, by the end, felt even more lopsided than the score indicated.

“Just lock in more and do what we have to do to make it all the way.”

What South Carolina has done this season is a direct result of what it didn’t do last season, losing to Stanford in the Final Four after Brea Beal and Boston both missed shots in the last five seconds.

Boston has been thoroughly dominant all season, her double-double Friday night the 29th of the year. Her 23 points against Louisville included her first 3-pointer since February, and she also had 18 rebounds. But one of her most impactful plays was an assist.

Facing a triple team under the basket, she flipped the ball to Beal, who scored on a layup to give South Carolina a 34-28 lead at halftime. Louisville would never get closer the rest of the game.

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South Carolina’s defense was stifling, particularly Beal’s coverage of Haley Van Lith. Beal had her locked down so thoroughly that Van Lith didn’t make her first field goal until there was 1:43 left in the second quarter, and she finished with only nine points.

The Gamecocks have held all but two opponents since January below 60 points.

“Last year we lost in the Final Four. This is the hump we needed to get over,” said Boston, the winner of all the major player of the year awards. “We got over that tonight.”

South Carolina now plays UConn, which held off Stanford to reach its 12th national title game. UConn has never played in a championship game that it didn’t win, a streak that began way back in 1995, in this very building.

Despite that record, the pressure won’t be on UConn on Sunday night. It’s had so many injuries to so many key players that just getting this far should count as a success.

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“Hopefully (Sunday) we can just worry about beating South Carolina and not beat ourselves as much,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “They’re going to be impossible to beat just as it is.”

And if UConn does, it will be as much about what South Carolina didn’t do as what UConn did.

It’s harsh, the unforgiving expectations there are for greatness. The better an athlete or team, the more that’s demanded of them. Career highs become the bare minimum, extraordinary performances are the norm. Win one title or MVP award, and the pursuit of another immediately begins.

Unfair as that is, so it will be with South Carolina. You cannot be as consistent, as unflappable, as clinically ruthless as the Gamecocks have been all season and not win it all.

“The last team that’s standing on Sunday night, it’s divine order. I truly believe that,” Staley said Thursday. “So if it’s not us, it’s not us. We’ll get another shot at it when it’s our turn.”

It has felt all season as if it’s South Carolina’s turn. All that’s left is to finish it off.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: South Carolina’s spectacular season requires title to be complete